The Colleges : Prime Ticket Denies Deal Tied to CCAA

Officials of Sportsworks, an arm of California Sports, Inc., parent company of the Los Angeles Lakers, approached the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. in October for the rights to package a broadcast of the men’s and women’s postseason tournament championship games.

From the beginning, CCAA Commissioner Tom Morgan said, Sportsworks made it clear that it already had secured air time on the Prime Ticket cable channel.

On Friday, Don Corsene, Prime Ticket vice president of programming and production, said that he had never heard of Sportsworks.

“We are booked through April, so there is no way that it will be on, even on tape delay,” he said.

Three other Prime Ticket programming employees also had never heard of Sportsworks. Nevertheless, Prime Ticket and Sportsworks have offices in the same building across from the Forum.

Tina Crossland, a representative of Sportsworks, said that a person in her firm had secured air time for the games on Prime Ticket but only on a tape-delay basis. However, she said that she could not remember who had arranged the air time or the name of the person at Prime Ticket with whom her firm had dealt.

Crossland said that Sportsworks was trying to put together a network of independent TV stations in cities that have CCAA teams. She named KCOY in San Luis Obispo and KEYT in Santa Barbara but was unsure whether a Los Angeles-area station would carry the games. Six of the eight schools in the CCAA are serviced by L. A. television stations.

Crossland added that Sportsworks has failed to secure a single sponsor for the event.

“It’s down to the point where we are going to have to cut it off,” she said of the effort to put the games on TV.

“Nobody has signed on the dotted line yet,” she said.

Brahma ball: The Pierce College volleyball team began defense of its state title with a win over Golden West last Friday, but the Brahmas figure to be severely tested in South Coast Conference play this season by powerful Orange Coast.

Pierce Coach Ken Stanley has eight players back from last season’s team that finished 18-3, including all-conference outside hitter Rico Guimaraes, middle blocker Turhan Douglas and Terry Schrumpf, who plays opposite the setter in Pierce’s 5-2 attack.

Orange Coast has four players returning from a team that won the state title in 1987.

“We’re pretty big and we have good balance,” said Stanley, who begins his 12th season with the Brahmas, “but Orange Coast is, far and away, the class of the league.”

The Brahmas play host to Orange Coast on March 1.

Streaking Cougars: The College of the Canyons baseball team will put its 38-game home win streak on the line next Wednesday when the Cougars (3-4) play host to Long Beach City College.

Coach Len Mohney said that his team does not feel pressure to keep the streak alive.

“With this group this year, we have other things to worry about,” he said.

Catching Waves: Andy Lopez, the former baseball coach at Cal State Dominguez Hills who is in his first season at Pepperdine, says he has had to make adjustments now that he is at the Division I level.

“You spend a lot more time recruiting and talking to young men who are recruiting us,” said Lopez, who replaced Dave Gorrie as coach of the Waves. “At Dominguez, if we wanted to go out and recruit someone this early, they were thinking about Pepperdine.”

Lopez, who lives in Thousand Oaks, said that he will recruit heavily from the Valley.

This year’s team includes sophomore catcher Frank Charles, who played at Montclair Prep and Sean Casey, a transfer from Santa Rosa College who graduated from Granada Hills.

In lieu of CLU: Rosa Jimenez led Cal Lutheran to the NAIA District 3 softball championship last season but now plays for Moorpark College.

Jimenez plays outfield and is the No. 2 pitcher for the Lady Raiders, who won the Western State Conference last season.

Will Thurston, Moorpark’s coach, said that Jimenez transferred to try to attract a scholarship offer from a Division I or Division II school. Jimenez led Cal Lutheran in five offensive categories, including batting (.336) and runs batted in (33). As a pitcher, she was 9-7 and posted a 2.06 earned-run average.

Helping hands: Dave Salzwedel, a goalie on the Cal Lutheran soccer team, puts his expertise to use during the off-season as an assistant coach at Westlake High.

Westlake earned a berth in the Southern Section 4-A Division soccer playoffs after finishing third in the Marmonte League.

Coaching protege: Al Nordquist, coach of the Moorpark College men’s basketball team, knows firsthand what a fierce competitor Oxnard College Coach Remy McCarthy can be.

McCarthy played for Nordquist at Moorpark and later became an assistant there.

“He was probably a better coach at Moorpark than he was a player,” Nordquist said. “He was always trying to tell me what to do, even when he was sitting on the bench.

“It was never negative with him. Remy was just always into the game, mentally.”

Under McCarthy, Oxnard leads Moorpark by a game in the Western State Conference standings. The rivalry between the teams has not hindered the friendship between coaches, however.

Nordquist, in fact, was the one who called McCarthy when Oxnard’s coaching position opened last year. At the time, McCarthy was coaching at Wenatchee (Wash.) JC.

Said McCarthy: “Coach Nordquist, he may be the kindest man in the world. He stuck with me through some hard times and stayed on me about my schoolwork, which is why I’m here today.”

Said Nordquist: “Part of the fun of coaching are the friendships you have. I’m real proud of Remy.”

Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Gary Klein, Paul McLeod and Ralph Nichols contributed to this notebook.